 Did you ever feel the need to level up your game on your front forks, but don't want to buy an entirely new set of forks? Maybe you should consider a cartridge kit. But how much better can a cartridge kit be compared to a Revalve? Let's find out. Most dirt bikes come equipped with pretty good suspensions, but on some bikes, Revalving the forks won't be enough due to the limitations of the technology itself, like more hard-endure-oriented bikes. But buying a full set of forks is far fetched. This is where cartridge kits come into the picture. MX Tech is an American company focused on making high-quality suspensions, shocks and cartridge kits that fit on most OEM suspensions and bikes, and go the extra mile in performance and adjustability. And how do they do that? Well, they not only use some of the best raw materials available, but also focus essentially on low volume and high-quality production. This is a generic quality cost chart. Every manufacturing company has its own total quality cost for every part they produce. The total cost is determined by the sum of the prevention cost, which increases according to how few defective parts we want out of the manufacturing process, and the failure cost, which is the amount of parts that don't meet the standard. A quality-driven company will figure out how much it will have to pay to achieve a certain level of quality for the volume of parts it produces. A high-volume manufacturer can improve the quality of its manufacturing process by investing in better tooling, increasing the batch of parts that are under manual inspection, or even having automated quality control. A low-volume manufacturer tends to use its manufacturing threshold to its favor by inspecting almost all or even all parts that are produced. MXTech focuses on build quality and light materials, but they also have one of the most innovative and well-rounded cartridge kits around, the Raven cartridge kit. On the outside, the Raven is equipped with hex key-damping adjusters to prevent the wear of regular flat-screw driver adjusters. On the cartridge itself, there is a set of grooves to adjust the preload of the spring. The higher it is, the less preload there will be on the spring, simple yet effective. The compression base valve follows the same principle as any other compression base valve from a closed cartridge system, but with an additional cup with shims on its base. On the damping rod, besides the rebound valve and mid-speed valve, there is an additional smaller piston, which, combined with a cup on the base valve, provides position-sensitive compression damping that dramatically improves bottoming resistance, called the Huck Valve. Let's see how the Raven cartridge works throughout its whole suspension stroke. When the forks get compressed, the damping rod slides up the cartridge and the oil is forced to flow through the low-speed compression-damping orifice. As the oil pressure keeps increasing between the mid-speed and compression base valve, the low-speed shim stack opens, allowing more oil flow and reducing damping. On the piston rod, the float on the mid-speed valve allows an initial damping bleed. The shim stack is engaged shortly after, allowing more oil flow and reducing damping. If the oil pressure keeps increasing, the high-speed shim stack opens, increasing the oil flow and providing less damping. When the Huck Valve piston enters the cup on the compression base valve, it means the forks are near the end of the stroke. Oil inside the cup has nowhere to go and is forced to go through the Huck Valve, increasing the overall damping of the forks and dramatically improving bottoming resistance. On rebound, the play on the Huck Valve piston allows an oil bypass through four small holes, allowing the cup to be refilled without any significant rebound damping. On the piston rod, the oil is initially forced to go through the low-speed rebound damping orifice. If the oil pressure keeps increasing under the rebound valve, the rebound shim stack opens, allowing more oil to exit the chamber below. This will generate rebound damping and control the forks extension. The Huck Valve makes the Raven cartridge kit a speed and position-sensitive damping system, providing massive bottoming resistance that keeps the rider safer and makes it possible to have the forks set up for a much wider range of applications compared to traditional close cartridge forks and without sacrificing any comfort or performance. As you can see, a cartridge kit can bring a lot of benefits for weekend warriors looking for a cost-effective improvement of the forks or a racer wanting to improve the performance. As for MX Tech Raven cartridge kit, you can expect a lot of bang for your buck, being one of the lightest cartridge kits on the market with innovative features that improve performance, comfort, reliability and adjustability. And talking about adjustability, if you want to finally learn how to take full advantage of your suspension adjustments, take a look at our online suspension courses available on our website. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below and thank you for watching. Knowledge is power.